


The Meowgnus Pawchives

by SixofOne



Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: But I'm being pretty loosey goosey with my definition here, But IMPLICATED SPOILERS through S5, Cats, Elias being a little creepy, Humor, M/M, Obsessiveness, Takes place during S1
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-28
Updated: 2021-01-28
Packaged: 2021-03-14 16:20:21
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,900
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29049051
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SixofOne/pseuds/SixofOne
Summary: “Do not test me, Sergeant Fickle,” Elias finds himself saying in a low voice mere minutes later, staring up at the beast looming above him on the top of one of his bookshelves. “I’ve killed before, and I’d do it again. I’ve lived two hundred years, and I’ll live two hundred more. Lifetimes will pass before me, lives longer than yours by a magnitude, and in the end your tiny existence will mean nothing in the grand scheme of all that I willSee. I could kill you here and feelnothing.”--OR: All of Elias' plans are coming together perfectly. That is, until the day that Jon finds The Cat (derogatory)
Relationships: Elias Bouchard/Jonathan "Jon" Sims | The Archivist
Comments: 28
Kudos: 87





	The Meowgnus Pawchives

**Author's Note:**

  * For [ningdom](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ningdom/gifts).



> I'm sorry. I am so sorry, this is so stupid, I'm so sorry.
> 
> Shout out to Ning for being my rock, my anchor, my life support during these turbulent times as I whined and sobbed my way through writing something for the first time in months, even if it is _incredibly stupid._ Couldn't have done it without you.
> 
> (PS: This was barely edited, so if you notice anything glaringly incorrect, feel free to give me a heads up.)

When Jon had called to say he would be late that day, Elias really hadn’t given it much thought. It had seemed strange, to be sure— he couldn’t remember Jon ever having been late before— but it was to be expected, perhaps. The day had dawned muggy and grey, with rolling dark thunderclouds spitting rain onto the London asphalt below, and Elias couldn’t truly be bothered to feel suspicious about it during such miserable weather. Not enough to check in, at least, and certainly not on a Friday morning. Fridays were when he took the time to work on the schedule, and his Archivist showing up an hour late during a thunderstorm simply wasn’t enough to pull him away from the mundane delight of scheduling the same 14 employees with the same availabilities week after week.

Once a month or so, he even would flip which days off the two employees in artifact storage were given for no discernible reason. Just to see if they might come in on the wrong days.

It isn’t until the energy of the building shifts ever-so-slightly— that nearly imperceptible sensation of him truly sharing his space with another for the first time each morning that always heralded Jon’s arrival— that Elias’ pen finally slows to a stop and he pauses.

Something is. Different, somehow. _Wrong._

Elias frowns, slowly rotating the pen between his fingers, then pushes away from his desk.

He can hear the hushed, furious voices before he even opens the door to Jon’s office to find Tim, Martin, and one particularly sodden Archivist all hunched over _something_ underneath Jon’s desk.

“Jon,” Elias starts, brows pinching together at the sight, “I wanted to check in with you after-“ and then he cuts off as he catches sight of something tan and vaguely round jumping onto Jon’s chair.

For a moment, and for the first time in many, many years, Elias actually finds himself feeling nearly as though the wind has been knocked out of him, as three guilty— and one offensively accusatory— sets of eyes stare back at him. “ _What,_ ” he finally manages to begin after some length, “on _God’s_ green earth is that.”

“Did he just invoke the name of God? The _Christian_ God?” Tim asks, feigning shock.

“I think he just meant it like. Like a turn of phrase,” Martin mumbles under his breath.

“YES, well,” Jon finally begins, drawing himself up a little bit and smoothing his voice in that way he always did when he was both trying to sound very smart and feeling very nervous, “I hadn’t really given much thought to a name yet, but I had been considering perhaps naming him Sergeant Thaddeus Fickle—“

Elias holds up a hand, and Jon stutters to a stop. “I think perhaps my question was misunderstood,” Elias says as evenly as possible. “Let me try again: Jonathan Sims, why is there a _cat_ sitting in your office chair.”

“Well-“ Jon starts.

“It’s been here since the institute opened, you know,” Elias adds. “The chair. It’s very, very old, and very, _very_ expensive.”

The cat makes some kind of horrible noise at that. Elias feels like describing it as a _meow_ would likely be entirely too generous, as it sounds more like a cross between a gurgle, and the sound of the air being let out of a balloon very, very slowly.

It’s a well and truly _ugly_ creature too: small and round and stocky, with bristly looking fur and one of those faces that likely made it look perpetually furious with the entire world around them and their place within it regardless of the mood it was really in.

Elias _hates_ it, and— based on the way it glowers balefully at him from its damp perch on top of Elias’ several hundred year old armchair— it seemingly hates him too.

“He wouldn’t stop following me,” Jon tries again, sounding uncharacteristically deflated, “all the way from my flat. He even snuck on the bus. And it’s been _raining_ all morning.”

“And I’m not unsympathetic to the plights of animals when the weather turns,” Elias says, completely untruthfully, “but our policy on pets inside the institute is very clear.”

“Technically not a pet,” Tim offers cheerfully. “I think the thing barely even counts as an animal, it looks more like that cursed mop from artifact storage.”

Martin suddenly perks at that. “Oh! You mean that one that leaves splinters in your hands no matter how much you sand it?”

“One and the same,” Tim says.

“He’s also _very_ good at catching worms,” Jon cuts in loudly, picking Sergeant Fickle up from somewhere around what Elias assumes must be its midsection within its poofy fur, and dropping the creature onto the ground. “Look.”

The cat is staring directly to Elias’ left, and he looks down too late to see one of those silvery worms scuttling towards him. He flinches, already lifting his foot up on instinct to begin stomping— but barely has time to even move before there’s a gurgled battle cry, and a flash of brown and tan lunges towards him with a speed that seems entirely impossible within the realm of physics. In an instant, the worm lays beheaded on the floor, Elias has a splatter of something that looks repulsively like worm blood on his trouser leg, and Sergeant Thaddeus Fickle has somehow managed to go from looking furious to almost unbearably smug.

“ _God._ ” Groans Elias.

“He did say God!” Says Tim.

“So is it alright if I keep him here?” Jon cuts in again, loudly, “In my office. Just for today.”

“Just for today,” Elias says, reluctantly setting his foot on the ground. “But it is _not staying_.”

—

Sergeant Thaddeus Fickle stayed.

Like some sort of terrible skit comedy show _nightmare,_ it seemed like Elias suddenly couldn’t turn a single corner of his own damn institute without running into someone pretending _very poorly_ to not have a cat shoved underneath their jumper.

And that was just the problem with having a whole staff of employees with their very mortal souls sworn to the service of the Eye: whether they realized it consciously or not, the atmosphere of the institute was that you could get away with anything and walk away with your job still very much intact, with barely so much as a word of warning. Certainly not get _fired._ No one at the institute ever seemed to get fired.

It was when Jon as much as challenged him on it, that Elias was finally forced to come to terms with the fact that his greatest enemy in 200 years wasn’t the Spiral, or Prentiss, or even the Stranger and its ritual- it was a very small, very round, very coarse cat named Sergeant Thaddeus Fucking Fickle.

“My flat doesn’t allow pets,” Jon had said, like that justified _everything._

“ _We don’t allow pets_.”

Jon shrugged. Just _shrugged_. “So fire me, then,” He had said, with a little challenging glint in his eyes that might have made Elias feel a little proud _if it hadn’t been directed at him,_ “but I need to keep him here for a bit.”

Elias stared at him. Opened his mouth, then shut it again, before turning on his heel and stalking to the door.

“You’re getting rid of it,” Elias had called out as he left.

“No, I’m not,” Jon called back, not even having the decency to look up from his statement as Elias shut the door behind him.

—

And the _issue,_ Elias now muses a week later, watching Sasha kick the bowl of cat food underneath her desk like a hockey puck, as if Elias wouldn’t see the shower of kibble fly across his recently polished mahogany floors— the _issue_ is that if you keep making threats without actually following through, then people start to get too comfortable.

“Good morning, Tim,” he says as Tim shoves a handful of what Elias assumes to be catnip toys into his desk drawer. “Martin,” he then says with a nod as he passes Martin, who immediately opens up the supply closet door and throws a heart-shaped cat scratcher inside before slamming it shut again. “Hello, Tad,” he says to Brad, the useless new filing clerk whose name Elias made a point to forget each morning, and who was currently hiding a bag of cat treats behind his back.

All of this, he endures. All of it, he ignores. Right up until he knocks gently on the door to Jon’s office, only to see his own _personal assistant_ leaning over to look at the beast that Jon has cradled in his arms like an infant, and who— Elias notes with much disgust— is currently blinking up at Jon with syrupy adoration despite its horrid scrunched up little face.

“That means he likes you,” Rosie is cooing, beaming at the animal as it makes a rumbling sort of choking noise that Elias supposes could be meant to resemble a purr.

He stands, horrified. “ _Rosie,_ ” he finally manages, voice weak as a man with no breath left in his lungs as Rosie jolts up guiltily and springs backwards, “not you, too.”

“I’ll go get you some coffee, then,” she mumbles as she hurries out, and Elias turns to watch her go, feeling oddly bereft.

He slowly looks back to the cat. The cat stares back, having jumped onto Jon’s desk and who is now sitting disrespectfully on top of one of the institute’s tape recorders.

Elias opens his mouth.

“I’m not getting rid of him,” Jon cuts in before Elias can speak, and Elias scowls.

“I could dispose of it myself,” He says, voice low yet tone light in that way he only ever used when he was truly implying a genuine threat. The one he used when discussing the possibility of employees no longer having access to the break room microwave because Chad once again couldn’t be bothered to cover his Tupperware before heating it.

Jon’s jaw tightens. “And are you going to?” He Asks, and Elias can _feel_ the force of his compelling chasing behind each word, stronger than he thinks Jon has likely ever used before. So much stronger than Elias had even realized he was capable of yet.

And all in defense of that _fucking. Cat._

Elias grips the door handle, allowing the warm prickle of the Eye’s power to roll over him, before tightly repeating, “ _just get rid of it,_ ” in lieu of a real answer, and snapping the door shut behind him.

—

The beast is a creature of The Web. There was no other explanation for it. And as he languished in his armchair that night, feet stretched miserably out onto his French tapestried ottoman and body slouched like a man dying of Consumption, the man currently calling himself Elias Bouchard _brewed._

He hadn’t ever known the Web— or, indeed, _any_ of the Fears— to choose an animal to do their bidding before. But it was the only thing that made any sort of _sense_. How else could one explain this animal just showing up one day, filthy and snaggletoothed, and everyone in the entire institute suddenly losing every ounce of common sense they once possessed, however little that may have been? He’s quite certain that he had even overheard Jon cooing something about ‘tummy rubs’ the other afternoon, while the beast’s horrible gurgling purrs vibrated so loud through the room that they even extended into the hallway where Elias had been furiously listening.

He hadn’t dared peek through one of the portraits in Jon’s office. For once he hadn’t been sure that he could bear whatever it was he might see.

But now, from the safety of his favorite armchair, Elias smooths his thumb thoughtfully across his lower lip as he considers. Jon never took the cat home with him— of that much Elias is certain, even if it made itself scarce the moment Jon left the building. Which meant it was still _there,_ somewhere. Lurking in the institute. _His_ institute. And while Elias is typically more than happy to allow the web to play Its little games on the outskirts of his awareness, to have a being within his very _stronghold_ — well, it all seemed a step too far.

It only takes the mental image of the beast roaming Elias’ office, spreading fur and mud and _schemes_ all across his possessions, that he finally makes up his mind and allows his own vision to grow unfocused. Within moments, the scene around him changes: from the bland white walls of a house that Elias had never bothered to truly make feel like a home, to the darkened wood of the institute floor. Much, much lower to the ground than he’s accustomed to seeing, and he isn’t sure if he’s actually hearing the snuffling wheezes of Sergeant Fickle’s breathing, or if the cursed sound is so imprinted within his mind at this point that he’s simply imagining it as he watches the beast scuttle across the floor.

The cat has at least been killing worms again, it seems, if the scattering of tiny corpses across the floor and the way Elias’ own adrenaline rises sympathetically in response to sharing a mind is anything to go off of. Was mid-pounce, at that, although much to his confusion, Sergeant Fickle suddenly skids to a halt as soon as Elias truly begins to watch. There are several long seconds where Elias waits in consternation, watching as the intended prey wriggles quickly under a bookshelf and out of sight, before the cat suddenly takes off like a shot to a corner of the library and then freezes again.

Elias frowns, brows furrowing as he stares at the spot where two walls come together— nothing else visible apart from the wood of the floor and the collection of dust tucked away in the corner that he was normally too tall to see. And he waits.

And he _waits._

He waits for at least several minutes before he realizes that the Sergeant is simply _not. Moving,_ his little face pressed into the corner and body rigid. And then the horrible realization suddenly dawns on him: Sergeant Thaddeus Fucking _Fickle,_ the beast of the Web and Elias’ own personal Coffin of the Buried, _knows that Elias is watching._

The thought manages to startle him so much that Elias’ vision comes back into his body with a sudden jolt, leaving him blinking in shock at the bare walls in front of him.

It seems utterly _impossible,_ and Elias can barely bring himself to believe it— and yet, for the rest of the evening, every time Elias tries once again to peek into the mind of a creature with a brain smaller than his pinkie finger, the result is the same: within moments, Elias’ vision will fill with nothing more than an expanse of wall and the infuriating sound of Sergeant Fickle wheezing loudly at him.

Elias decides, not for the first time and certainly not for the last, that he _hates_ the goddamned cat.

—

“Jon,” Elias greets the next morning, standing stiffly in the doorway to Jon’s office with his coffee cup clenched a little too tightly in his hand.

“Elias,” Jon returns, clipped and yet calm. All the confidence of a man who knows he has the upper hand.

Elias squints. “ _Fickle,_ ” he says through gritted teeth to the overgrown scrub brush perched on the edge of Jon’s desk.

The scrub brush squonks back at him.

Elias turns on his heel and storms to his office with all the fury of a barely restrained thundercloud.

—

Days pass. The cat stays.

Save for the carpet of dead worms that litter the institute (most of the bodies seemingly being left around Elias’ desk, which he _very_ much takes to be a threat, thank you,) Sergeant Fickle does seem to stay mostly out of Elias’ sight. While he’s none too pleased about having to ask Rosie to sweep the corpses off of his floor each day, he can begrudgingly acknowledge that perhaps the beast’s single minded obsession with dismembering Prentiss’ worms does have its merits.

He thinks, perhaps, that maybe he can live to ignore it after all. If it keeps his Archivist happy and doing what Elias needs him to do, then perhaps he can learn to coexist with the horrible little brute.

Maybe it wouldn’t be so bad.

—

“Do not test me, Sergeant Fickle,” Elias finds himself saying in a low voice mere minutes later, staring up at the beast looming above him on the top of one of his bookshelves. “I’ve killed before, and I’d do it again. I’ve lived two hundred years, and I’ll live two hundred more. Lifetimes will pass before me, lives longer than yours by a magnitude, and in the end your tiny existence will mean nothing in the grand scheme of all that I will _See._ I could kill you here and feel _nothing_.”

From up atop his perch, just high enough for Elias’ fingers to barely brush across his paws without truly touching, Sergeant Thaddeus Fickle stares back for several long moments. Then he promptly finishes pushing a 250-year-old music box once belonging to Johannes Brahms off of the bookshelf and exploding onto the unforgiving wood floor below, disappearing in a flurry of brown and tan fur as Elias’ bellow of unrestrained fury harmonizes with the discordant clash of shattering wood and metal.

—

That afternoon, when Sasha stops by his office to deliver some of her more interesting research findings, Elias looks up only to see her smiling broadly with a tightness to her lips as though she’s trying very hard to keep from laughing.

“What is it,” Elias asks with a sigh, setting down his fountain pen and leaning back in his chair. “Why are you smiling like that?”

“He really isn’t so bad, you know,” Sasha says. When Elias keeps staring wordlessly at her, she adds, “Sergeant Fickle, I mean.”

“ _Please_.” Elias says, tone long-suffering. “If you’ve any mercy left within you, spare me.”

Sasha drops excitedly into one of the chairs across from Elias’ desk, expression conspiratorial, and Elias regards her like one might consider an animal carcass that had just been thrown on top of a dining table. “He’s _sweet,_ ” she insists, “and I don’t think Jon has ever seemed more relaxed at work. He’s almost pleasant to be around recently.”

“This is his job, not his house.”

Sasha waves her hand dismissively. “Plenty of businesses have cats that live there! The little store near my place even has a cat.”

“I see,” says Elias.

“His name is Moriarty.” Sasha adds, unhelpfully.

Elias sighs. “Need I remind you that this is a _research institute,_ ” he says, holding up his hand when Sasha opens her mouth to argue. “And while I’m sure it’s very charming to purchase a bag of crisps covered in cat hair, I would rather avoid that sort of environment within my archives.”

The look that Sasha gets on her face is strange, then. Somewhere between coy and evilly delighted as she taps the edge of her research folder against the desk thoughtfully. Finally, she slides it across to him with a little smile.

“Are you sure you aren’t maybe just a little jealous?”

“Jealous of _what,_ exactly?” Elias says with a scoff. “Of having a _cat_ in my office?”

“No, no,” Sasha says quickly, shaking her head. “Jealous _of_ the cat.”

Elias stares at her. Looks down to the folder in front of him as though it might hold the answers within it, then back to her face. “ _What._ ”

“Well, you know!”

“I most certainly do _not._ ”

“It’s just— well, Jon seems so attached to it now. I always sort of thought you had a thing for him, with the way you, like. Stare at him. All the time.”

“Sasha.” Elias begins very carefully, though he keeps his tone dangerously low. “While I know I try to keep things relatively fun here at the institute, and you have been here at the institute for a very long time, there are still some levels of professionalism that I expect from my employees. Regardless of how long we may have known one another.”

“Yeah, yeah, alright,” Sasha says dismissively with a laugh, “message received, loud and clear.” She stands and moves to the door— then pauses, fingertips resting lightly against the handle. “You _do_ have a thing for him though, right?”

“ _Out,_ ” Elias says, and Sasha’s laugh crescendos to a cackle as she slips through the door.

He can still hear her laughing all the way down the hallway.

—

“Mr. Lukas called for you this morning, sir,” Rosie tells him the next morning, moving out from behind her desk to walk after Elias as he makes his way to his office.

“Did he?” Elias asks, surprised. “We’ve barely been open an hour.”

“Yes, sir. The phone was ringing when I got in. He seemed quite insistent.”

Elias scoffs quietly as he fishes around in his pocket for the keys to his office. “I’m sure he did.”

“I’ve also readied those procurement forms for you,” Rosie continues. Then, after Elias pauses to stare at her blankly, she adds, “for that laminating machine you requested.”

Elias lets out a delighted _oh!_ of realization, finally fishing his key ring out of his pocket and fitting the one to his office into its lock. Days of sulky reproach at Rosie’s betrayal melt instantly at the prospect of his new laminator (a very _clever_ device— modern man was nothing if not delightfully inventive, he had to admit,) and he finally offers her a warm, wide smile.

“Thank you, Rosie.” He says, genuinely, turning the key to open his door. “I know I’ve been a bit tense these last few days, and I apologize for that. I just want you to know that I truly—“

He trails off as his door swings open, frozen in place as he stares into his office. There, with all ten claws sunk deep into the leather of his armchair, sits Sergeant Thaddeus Fickle, tail lashing and eyes wild. Elias has one moment of horror as the beast attempts to pull its claws free at the sight of him, only to realize that one is stuck. Then he scarcely has time to begin pleading _no, no, no,_ before Sergeant Fickle yanks his arm, and the loud _POP!_ of that last claw tearing its way out of vintage leather older than all of his archive assistants combined suddenly echoes through the peaceful morning air of the institute.

The silence that settles afterwards is nearly deafening. Then— perhaps slightly hysterical— Elias shrieks, “that’s _it!_ ”

“Oh, no.” Says Rosie.

Elias tears his suit coat off, gathering it up in his hands and holding it out in front of himself like a shield as he approaches the horrid little monster. “I am _not_ allowing this to continue.”

The fiend lets out an offended little gargle as Elias wraps it up in the jacket, making sure all four legs and fourteen claws are bound tight as he strides furiously past Rosie and down the hallway to Jon’s office.

“I’ve _had it,_ ” he continues to no one in particular as he turns the knob with his elbow, kicking open the door and thrusting the writhing mass of suit coat material and fur towards where Jon is scrambling up from his chair. “A man has his limits, and mine have been _exceeded._ I will not stand for this vicious little beast running rampant through _my archives_.”

He dumps Sergeant Fickle unceremoniously to the floor, the wretch letting out a furious squonk as it hits the floor and then taking off in a flurry of fur and chaos to hide underneath Jon’s desk.

“Oh, really?” Jon says, eyes blazing as he rounds his desk. “Or _what?_ Are you going to get a new archivist, Elias? Is that what you’re going to threaten me with?”

“No.” Elias says through gritted teeth.

“Are you going to threaten to _kill him_ again?”

“ _No,_ ” Elias says again, more forcefully. “ _Worse._ ” Jon is in front of him now, and Elias takes advantage of every inch he has on Jon by standing up to his full height— if just to be petty and force the man to crane up at him.

“What, then? What could you _possibly_ do other than threaten my job or my cat?”

“Jonathan Sims,” Elias says, lowering his voice and leaning forward into what little personal space Jon has left, “if you do not get rid of the cat, I will make the employee Secret Santa _mandatory_ this year.”

Jon _gasps,_ bringing one hand to his chest like a pensioner clutching for her pearls, then narrows his eyes and leans forward himself. “ _You wouldn’t,_ ” he hisses furiously, and Elias smiles viciously.

“Oh, I am _begging_ you to try me.”

They stand like this for a moment, nearly nose-to-nose and refusing to blink, before Jon’s shoulders slump and he steps back.

“ _Fine_.” he says, defeated, and Elias stands up straight again. “Fine. You win. I’ll… re-home Thaddeus. Just, please.”

“We’ll never speak of this again, I assure you,” Elias says, all pleasant smiles again as he begins moving back to the door.

“Wait— Elias.” Jon calls before he makes it through. “You’ve got a little—“ and then he trails off, instead making some sort of gesture to his chest. Elias looks down at his own clothing, and immediately finds himself confronted with cat hair hanging in clumps all over his exceptionally tailored grey suit, from his neck and all the way down to his proudly polished shoes.

He looks back up with a tight smile. “ _Today,_ if you would.” And then he slams the door shut behind him.

—

The next day dawns so bright and warm that Elias finds himself sighing in pleasure even as his alarm goes off. He normally makes it a habit to go in an hour after the institute has already opened, what with how late he tends to stay, yet today he’s out through his door with a hitch in his step with plenty of time to spare.

Entering through the front doors feels like nothing short of a Second Coming, the sunlight pouring in behind him like the rays of God Himself as he beams to where Rosie sits at her desk.

“Good morning, Rosie,” he says, and his heart swells as she returns his greeting.

Making his way through the archives, he sees Sasha offer him a little wave as he passes. Not a cat bowl or piece of kibble in sight. As it should be. He waves back at her.

“Good morning, Tim,” he says as he passes, and Tim offers back a cheery _morning, boss!_ without shoving a single catnip toy into his desk. “Martin,” he greets, nodding as Martin chirps back a little _hey_ with his hands beautifully full of folders instead of cat scratchers. “Hello, Chad,” he says to Brad, who morosely mumbles something that Elias doesn’t hear from around the open filing cabinet, nor does he particularly care to.

Reaching Jon’s office, he opens the doors with the freedom of a man who has been tested by the Coffin and won; free at last of the weight that had been dragging him down for what felt like a mortal eternity.

“Jon,” he says benevolently, as Jon jolts in his chair and stutters out of the statement he was recording, “good to see you this morning.”

“Y-yes,” Jon says, perhaps a bit flaccidly, but Elias doesn’t let that put a damper on his generous mood. He beams at his archivist— _his_ archivist— his beautiful, wonderfully doomed archivist, and raises a hand in supplication.

“I’m sorry I lost my temper yesterday, but I’m glad things can go back to the way they were. Thank you for finally ridding the place of that beast.”

Jon clears his throat awkwardly and shifts— which admittedly seems a little strange, given the context, and mumbles something to the affirmative. A little, _sure,_ or, _of course_ — Elias doesn’t quite catch it, but it doesn’t matter. The only thing that matters is that Elias had watched Jon removing the cat through the eyes of one of the portraits last night, and he was _free._

“I’ll see you later today, archivist.” Elias says warmly. “I’ve got a few particular statements that I’d like to bring your attention to.”

And with that, he leaves Jon to his work, closing the door behind him with a blissful sigh of victory.

—

Hours and hours later— after the rest of the institute employees have long since gone home, and the time rests closer to midnight than to closing time— the lamp in Jon’s office is still on.

It’s one of those brass desk lamps, with the green shades that always seem to materialize overnight like fungi through the many worldwide libraries of academia. Elias finds them a little overdone, if he’s being entirely honest, but Jon had insisted on it when he took his position in the archives. And, as the door swings open in front of them, he does have to admit that they may have their merits.

Jon looks softer, somehow, in the warm bath of the light. The tired shadows under his eyes seem just a bit less dark, and that worried little furrow between his eyebrows, that was developing much too early for how _young_ he truly is, is smoothed out in the gentle lighting. 

His archivist looks up at him as he enters, exhausted and worn thin and _lovely,_ and Elias feels the closest thing he knows to affection prickle like needles deep within his chest.

“Staying late again,” Elias says— not a question, but a statement, and Jon pulls his glasses off his nose with a long sigh as he tiredly runs his fingers along his brow.

The honesty in the gesture is much more open than Jon would likely show outside this small little bubble of reality. Here, where the veil of the universe feels just a little bit thinner than the world around them— where the lateness of the hour and the weight of the silence makes the boundaries of the institute feel just a little more private— Jon has always had a hard time hiding his weaknesses.

Elias thinks to the time when Jon will finally realize just how much more _seen_ he was in this parallel world, with his exhaustion and self consciousness and fears laid raw and bare, and suppresses a shudder.

“It just seems there’s always more to do,” Jon says from behind his fingers still pressed against his eyes. He scrubs at them one final time, then drops his hands to his lap with a long sigh and offers Elias a tired smile. “I’m afraid I may never leave on time again.”

Elias smiles back, just a little. “Well, then I suppose it’s a _very_ good thing that I put you on salary, rather than hourly.”

The words echo in a meaningless mimicry of office humor in this world that has no place for them, but Jon still laughs a little, all the same. A small, tired exhalation as he reaches for his glasses and pushes them to his face with a soft, “yes, I suspect that it was.” He pauses, then, and Elias can feel the edges of Jon’s mind start to warp for a moment in that way they do when the sleep that’s been set aside for too long finally begins pushing in. Then Jon blinks, shakes his head, and forces himself to focus on Elias once more. “And what about you, then? What’s kept you here so late?”

“Oh,” Elias begins, a little too casually, “to be honest, I suppose I feel more at home here at the institute than I ever have where I've slept. I find myself less and less inclined to leave as the years go by.” And that was… true. A tiny grain of sand that amounted to a mountain of truths greater than Jon could possibly even understand here, in this moment. Elias’ house sits, tastefully furnished, and yet a soulless void of books he’s never read and paintings he’s never looked at. An empty shell compared to the halls of his institute, where the very pores of every surface have clung to the countless decades of him. Jonah Magnus, as represented through the heavy drape of each velvet curtain and the muted paint of every portrait, their colors grown dull with age and yet the eyes continuing their sharp, silent vigil upon the world.

Jon just nods. “I understand,” he says, and Elias can’t help but smile at him because he knows just how very _untrue_ those words are.

Elias has stretched his fingers into Jon’s mind enough times to know just how desperately he craves the warmth and softness of comfortable surroundings. He’s seen Jon’s armchair, the cushion threadbare and sunken, yet well-loved and all the softer for how long it’s cradled Jon’s body. He’s seen each one of Jon’s possessions and felt the love that Jon has for them for what feels like a lifetime. For all the man’s posturing and pretenses of stiffness, in the privacy of Jon’s own home, his tiny kingdom lays swathed in warm colors and soft fabrics— perhaps a little messier than it should be, but all the more comfortably lived-in because of it.

Whether Jon realizes it or not, every minute within the archives still prickles at Jon’s subconscious like a thorn caught in a sock. The eyes of the portraits that always watch him still make his own eyes itch and his neck burn with the uncomfortable wrongness of it; the unbearable _rightness_ of it.

But that was okay. He would learn. Elias is nothing if not a man of deep, impenetrable patience, and Jon would _learn._

Now, with Jon’s tired gaze locked on his, Elias reaches, ever so gently— with the care of a lover and all the warmth that Jon will never admit to craving— into his consciousness once more. “Well,” he begins, _feeling_ the little hitch of Jon’s breath as Elias’ mind slowly eases into Jon’s own, “I certainly appreciate how much time and effort you put into the institute. You truly do excellent work, Jon.”

The words alone are weightless. Simple platitudes of socially acceptable workplace nothingness, yet with the weight of Elias’ intention spreading like warm water through Jon’s mind, and Jon’s own constant, desperate desire for someone— _anyone_ — to validate him, Elias can feel the way his heart begins to quicken and the small little gasp of breath in Jon’s lungs. The way his lips part, face flushed and eyes unable to look away from Elias’ own.

And Elias holds him there. In the moment that has lasted less than a second, but seems to stretch on for an eternity, Elias cups his hands around Jon’s mind and simply allows Jon to _feel_ it. He doesn’t push; no, weeks, months, _years_ from now, long after Jon has fallen to him and the regret and denial have begun to roar like caged lions within Jon’s heart, he wants Jon to look back and know with a cruel certainty that Jon had _chosen_ him. Elias doesn’t need to use his power to force Jon’s hand. A little suggestion here and there, perhaps— a little reassurance that when everyone else had turned on him, that _Elias_ would always be proud of Jon’s work. But that slow thrill that Jon felt, that heat that pooled in his stomach; those had always been there, whether nudged along by Elias or not.

It’s when Jon takes in a sudden, shuddering breath to speak— and oh, Elias is so keen to hear what he will say— that they both hear it. Elias knows that Jon hears it too, because he blinks suddenly, and the crystalline tendrils stretching and yearning towards each others’ minds snap to dust in an instant.

From around one of the bookshelves, there’s a loud creak and a plaintive little _mrrt?_ that Elias is all too familiar with. He swears his heart stops for a second.

“ _No,_ ” he whispers hoarsely, spinning to face the noise, and from across the desk he’s vaguely aware of Jon making a panicked choking noise as he bolts up from his chair.

Elias can feel the sudden surge of Jon’s adrenaline through whatever is left of their mental connection, and for a split second, he’s almost expecting Jon to _punch_ him.

What he doesn’t expect is for Jon to round the corner of his desk, grab Elias be the lapels of his coat, and drag him down to kiss him.

The adrenaline coursing through Jon’s blood quickly shifts to panicked confusion, the echoing sensation of _what the_ fuck _did I just do?!_ screaming in Jon’s head so loud that it passes straight into Elias. And in that moment, as Elias himself fumbles in shock, Elias suddenly feels the weight of the truth sink into his bones like a leaden weight.

He can _See_ into Jon’s mind, every moment condensed into a fraction of a second: Jon trying, repeatedly, to shoo the cat away. Scooching it out by the butt as Sergeant Fickle yowled furiously, only for it to dart back inside, quick as a flash, the next time the door was opened. Jon dragging it, writhing in his arms and gurgling its furious little screams, back out of the institute, only for Jon to get back to his office to find the beast already sitting on top of his desk and staring at Jon reproachfully. The cat coming back, over and over and _over_ again, until Jon, exhausted and defeated, simply… gave up.

And it’s as Jon snaps out of his frozen shock at kissing Elias in his ill thought out, Hail Mary attempt to keep Elias from discovering the cat, stuttering out some kind of horrified apology, that Elias nearly breaks out into laughter at the helplessness of the whole situation.

The creature is a beast of the Web. There is _no other explanation for it_. Or perhaps, somehow, it really is simply a very stubborn cat, but the result is the same, regardless: Elias will never be rid of it. Like the tiny spiders that normally signal the Web’s presence, temporarily destroyable and yet omnipresent in their determination to always _return,_ Sergeant Thaddeus Fickle will haunt Elias in one form or another until either it destroys him, or Elias destroys the world. Were he to die, he feels the truth strike him like a lightning bolt sent from the heavens; that the last thing he would see before his mortal heart stopped for the final time, would be Sergeant Thaddeus Fickle’s pinched little face staring down at him, unblinking and quietly gurgling.

The power of the Eye is strong, but the Web’s plans always came to pass, one way or another.

With this thought in his mind, Elias lets out a single, helpless chuckle, brushes his fingers along Jon’s jaw, and follows him down to silence the apologies still stuttering from between his lips.

Elias kisses him until Jon is flushed and breathless, slides his fingertips to rest against Jon’s neck just to feel the way his blood rushes and thrums frantically underneath the fragile shield of his skin. And when he does pull back, it’s barely an inch, hands still cupped around Jon’s neck as the man gapes at him.

“Go out to dinner with me,” Elias says, lips brushing against Jon’s with each syllable.

“I-I- no I mean, I couldn’t- I— _what?_ ” Jon says, eloquently.

“You can keep the cat.”

Jon gapes wider at him. “ _What?_ ” Jon repeats, even more frantically. Then his eyebrows suddenly furrow together. “Elias Bouchard, are you trying to _bribe_ me?”

Elias pulls back just a little bit further, moving his hands to rest on Jon’s shoulders. “I don’t know.” He says, honestly. Then, “is it working?”

Jon’s face is flushed and his eyes are still wide, which is such a pretty image that Elias doesn’t even mind the scrubby little beast coiling around their legs and squonking loudly.

And in the pause before Jon can find his voice again, Elias _Sees_. Not a true vision of the future, and yet with a strange sort of certainty, all the same. Jon will rise, and grow, and consume, and fall. He will grow stronger than everything that has ever come before him, until his own mortal body can no longer contain the force of all that he Is; and _still_ he will become even more. He will grow to hate Elias, to try to destroy him, and, perhaps, even succeed. And then he will eventually come to realize that all Elias did, he did for _Them_. And Jon will learn to love him all over again, and Elias will be there to welcome him.

“I think that would be an exceptionally unwise idea,” Jon chokes out, here in the present and still heartbreakingly mortal. Elias waits, letting him catch the breath he still needs and calm the mind that still races with insignificant worries and anxieties. As long as it takes.

“But—“ Jon starts. Stops. Then sighs, helplessly. “ _Oh,_ why not.”

Elias smiles. They’ll have an entire eternity to rule together as Kings. For now, he supposes, a dinner date as men will have to suffice.

And Jonah is a very patient man, after all.

**Author's Note:**

> To see our little boy Thaddeus Fickle himself, please see: https://twitter.com/666ofone/status/1354904982462455812?s=21  
> All the continued gratitude to Ning for drawing the best cat to have ever lived.
> 
> Feel free to yell with or at me on Twitter, @666ofOne!


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